tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post4899163661946060417..comments2019-09-06T16:13:23.261+01:00Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Just trying to mimic baroque practicesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-30589062874454336312010-11-01T21:41:53.005+00:002010-11-01T21:41:53.005+00:00Garth, thanks for that. Stones being shipped from ...Garth, thanks for that. Stones being shipped from Europe to the states seems to be a recurring theme here -<br /><br />http://www.overgrownpath.com/2008/01/old-meets-new-on-santiago-pilgrimage.htmlPliablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10616598845886342325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-36786312730315007432010-11-01T21:19:13.765+00:002010-11-01T21:19:13.765+00:00Pliable, the mention above of the Berlin Philharmo...Pliable, the mention above of the Berlin Philharmonic reminds me that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has also taken to performing selections from Telemann’s ‘Tafelmusik’ over the past few years (in 2007 and late 2009). I mentioned this to an excellent sextet of musicians from the Helsinki Baroque orchestra at a reception on Saturday night and it brought amusement to their faces. These musicians also surprised me by mentioning their difficulty in getting the Finnish National Opera to fully support baroque opera, as well as contemporary, modern, and 19th c. opera. They would like to perform a major Handel opera, and perhaps Monteverdi’s &#39;Poppea&#39;, in addition to Handel’s ‘Acis and Galetea’, Monteverdi’s &quot;Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda”, and a Haydn opera.<br /><br />Also, I don’t know if you have mentioned elsewhere in your writings the New Clairvaux Abbey, in Vina, California, north of Sacramento (and Chico), California, which is being rebuilt from the stones that American oligarch William Randolph Hearst bought years back, in the first third of the 20th c., from an 800 year old monastery in Ovila, Spain. Unlike the Cloisters, in New York City, the Ovila stones – until a few years ago – were never properly reassembled by Hearst in California and were later reportedly sold by Hearst to the City of San Francisco. The stones were recently featured here in the ‘Nova’ television science program on gothic cathedral building technology.Garth Trinklhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11084463787729969177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-56973980452123077702010-11-01T20:30:40.060+00:002010-11-01T20:30:40.060+00:00As you write about Prades, I wonder have you also ...As you write about Prades, I wonder have you also visited the amazing opera festival in nearby Mosset?P. M. Doolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16673509230835222713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-72373370608609594242010-11-01T01:45:14.855+00:002010-11-01T01:45:14.855+00:00One more example on the topic of &quot;authenticit...One more example on the topic of &quot;authenticity&quot; or the lack thereof - I&#39;m listening at the moment to <i>Love in her eyes sits playing</i> from Handel&#39;s <i>Acis and Galatea</i>, sung by Peter Pears and conducted by Adrian Boult. Great performances exist over a wide band of the suitability/authenticity spectrum. For my taste, this one is high enough in suitability that opinions about authenticity fade.<br /><br />This was recorded in 1959, which I believe was the same year as the (in)famous and much misunderstood Beecham Messiah ... but that&#39;s another story.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00914563821350955193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-67309178592331721982010-10-31T18:54:33.196+00:002010-10-31T18:54:33.196+00:00&quot;...the Berlin Phiharmonic and others are jus...<b>&quot;...the Berlin Phiharmonic and others are just trying to mimic baroque practices. This just does not make any sense.&quot;<br /><br />Is Antoine Leboyer right in saying that musicians today are too dogmatic? </b><br /><br />To my ears, he has a point ... but carries it too far and falls into his own trap by being too dogmatic!<br /><br />I don&#39;t think it&#39;s fair to reduce the so-called &quot;HIP&quot; movement in symphony orcheatras and other non-specialist groups to &quot;mimic(ing) baroque practices.&quot; Can this approach be carried too far? Of course ... but so can studiously avoiding any taint of &quot;authentic practices.&quot;<br /><br />Case in point - the Berlin Baroque Soloists, and my favourite of their CD&#39;s which I&#39;ve heard: Bach cantatas with Thomas Quasthoff (amazon.com/Bach-Cantatas-Quasthoff-Johann-Sebastian/dp/B0002VDYPA). They&#39;re Berlin Philharmonic members, and (as I understand it) they use modern instruments, with the string players sometimes using different bows. They clearly use some &quot;baroque practices,&quot; but the disparaging term &quot;mimic&quot; is not a word that would come to my mind.<br /><br /><b>Do we need more of Noah Greenberg&#39;s style of creative scholarship? Do we have the balance between authentic and synthetic wrong?</b><br /><br />Absolutely to both! As I said in a comment to an earlier post, I wish the term &quot;authentic&quot; would vanish. It&#39;s been misused and abused almost into meaninglessness. The point should be &quot;suitability.&quot; Does the performance present the work in a way that has coherence, meaning, and enjoyment? That&#39;s what I care about. If I could find my old LP of the <i>Play of Daniel</i> and listen to it, I would care little whether it was &quot;authentic.&quot; I&#39;d care a great deal about whether it presented the work effectively.<br /><br />It seems to be far to easy to end up at one end of a spectrum sniping at those who seem to be too far toward the other end.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00914563821350955193noreply@blogger.com